Thursday, April 10, 2008

Yes, Barbara's little boy just can't hold back. His latest lament? Young people, especially non-white young people don't seem to understand that voting Republican is good for them, even if it's really only good for "not them".

Maybe that's because the prime constituency of today's Republican party is a bunch of fat, balding, older white males of dubiously acquired wealth who believe they are entitled to bang the younger members of their staff on the office desk.

Young people react to the success or failure of the first politicians they know. The twentysomethings of the 1980s, for example, associated the Democratic Party with the malaise of Jimmy Carter — and the GOP with the triumphs of Ronald Reagan. Today's Republican Party is associated with a wave of disappointments and embarrassments: Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, congressional corruption scandals, the mortgage crisis.

Disappointments and embarrassments?! Who the fuck is this clown trying to have on?

Those weren't disappointments and embarrassments. Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick! Those were deliberate misappropriations of the truth, mammoth failures of government, premeditated intent to defraud taxpayers and a nod to the button-down hucksters and thieves operating a blatant Ponzi-scheme out in the open. You could call them demonstrations of incompetence, collusion, self-enrichment by the wealthy, cronyism, unchecked greed, ad infinitum, but disappointments and embarrassments? It was a wave alright. And it was filled with great honkin' pieces of nasty deadheads just below the surface. By the way, who wrote the "Axis of Evil" line?

The Republican Party has become increasingly identified with conservative Christianity.

No shit? Frum might want to talk to Karl Rove about that. Perhaps it's because the loudest and most repugnant of the Christian conservative movement identifies strongly with the Republican party.

Younger Americans are becoming more secular and more permissive.

He could have said, "more realistic and more tolerant of the entire social fabric" but, in an attempt to demonstrate a social ill, he couldn't resist in banging them over the head with the fact that they don't identify with the Christian conservative movement. It also demonstrates that Frum suffers from a cognitive disconnect. This... sudden rise of secularism and permissiveness would be shocking if it had just suddenly happened. Frum is conveniently avoiding the fact that this has being happening for a lot longer than he's willing to admit.

Republicans took a beating on the Social Security issue in 2005. But the issue is not going away. And Barack Obama's solution — taxing more income for Social Security — is neither workable nor popular. Personal accounts offer hope for personal wealth to a generation that is increasingly anxious about its economic future. With a relatively small subsidy — $300 per year for workers earning less than $40,000 — a revived Republican personal account plan could guarantee that every American worker would retire a millionaire, even if they never earn more in their lives than minimum wage.

Can you say, Voodoo Economics? Try. Because that's what Frum is offering here. By the way, being a millionaire doesn't mean much if your retirement dollar is only worth 12 percent of the dollars you stored away in the Bank of Bush. Sadly, No! slices and dices it for you.

No... there's still about 20 percent of the population who think Bush is magnificent. Some of them aren't fat, balding older white males.

But we can talk to young blacks and Hispanics as young people, who share economic interests with an entire generation of overtaxed young workers, regardless of race.

Except that you'd be lying to them and they already have that figured out.

Present a sunnier face on social issues. We need to make clear that we defend the family not to impose our values on others, but in order to give the next generation of America's children a fair chance in life.

By imposing their values on others. More Leave It To Beaver!!! No more wardrobe malfunctions. Just boxes and boxes of crunchy wholesome goodness. Led by... the Christian conservative movement. Of course, rather than living with the imposed so-called values of the Republican party everyone could just follow the example they provide.

Children who grow up without their fathers are more likely to go to jail, drop out of school and create fatherless families of their own.

Leap, Frum, leap!! David takes out his junior sociology kit and does what he said he wouldn't do - impose conservative values on others. Never mind that a lot of those familial relationships were abusive - towards women and children - and the children growing up without their fathers under the same roof are safer.

A majority of America's poor children would be lifted out of poverty if their mothers married their fathers.

Need I point out the direction Frum took here? Blame, blame, blame. It's the mothers' fault. OK, let's put this another way. If the mothers were able to effect an education and income which would provide financial security without having to submit themselves to a relationship with an undesirable "father", children would be lifted out of poverty. Of course that would require a lot more effort on the part of government to assure equality. You know, something like an equal rights amendment to the US Constitution. Then you couldn't impose conservative values on everyone.

On abortion, too, it is important that Americans understand that the end of Roe v. Wade does not mean a national abortion ban. Ending Roe means that individual states recover the power to make their own decisions on abortion. We as Republicans need to make it very clear: If California and New York vote to retain abortion rights after Roe, national Republicans won't interfere.

Hidden agenda. The goal of the Republican party is to end the federal force of an entrenched decision. This would leave states, (run by fat, balding, older white males), free to subjugate women in any way they saw fit. Unless they get their secretary pregnant and then they'll ship her off to an "abortion-state" to have the problem dealt with.

Re-emphasize the environment. The voting data suggest that young voters might care less about the environment in reality than they think or say they do. Nevertheless, environmental concern is the price of admission to any kind of discussion with the young.

Even. If. You. Don't. Mean. It. I know!! Let's harness the emanations of this gas-bag. That should provide power enough for a small city.

Above all, results matter. Republicans must avoid the temptation to forget Iraq and the war on terror. As the Iraq situation improves in the months ahead, as the USA continues to enjoy greater security from terrorism, we need to argue the case that it was our policies that delivered these results.

Having described Iraq as a disappointment and embarrassment Frum now flips onto his head to tell us how much of a success it is. Nevermind that the population of "terrorists" has been expanded by the actions of the Republicans, the world is anything but secure, thanks to Bush/Cheney and those motherhood aspects of life which were considered to be the secure domain of Americans are now lodged in China, India and Europe.